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Comment by venus | Hacker News Reader

> The number of individual nations that could produce a can of Coke is zero

While I understand what the author is trying to say, I don't think that is true at all. I'm pretty sure that if they had a good reason, any number of advanced economies could get it together enough to produce the cans themselves. Seems like the main hard part is the aluminium.

While I'm nit-picking, I believe natural cryolite has not been used in aluminium processing for decades.

Thought-provoking article, though; I typed this with a can of Diet Coke on my desk.

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It's the same reason natural cryolite isn't used - it's not economically viable. Lots of countries grow all the agricultural products. Aluminum isn't hard, just potentially more expensive.

> While I'm nit-picking...

Me too, Pinjarra is where the refinery for the largest producing bauxite mine is. And the refinery operates today because of cheap coal in Australia.

As is the case with many industrial minerals, it's often far cheaper to ship raw ore or concentrates to smelters built where electricity is cheap. Aluminum is no exception, and electricity cost is the reason there is a refinery in Iceland, despite being far from any bauxite mines.

The story really isn't that no country can't make a can of Coke, but why they don't. It's a fascinating story, unfortunately mostly told through feasibility spreadsheets.

I'm in the industry and it's not hard to think of all the steps ranging hundreds of millions of years to put an apple on my desk (there's volcanoes and inland seas! Dinosaurs if you stretch your mind!). This is a good summary. If he got any deeper, it'd be a book.

Lots of countries grow all the agricultural products

Who grows cinnamon, vanilla, coca, and kola? How many countries grow all four, because I doubt it's "lots". Do they also have some form of sugar and aluminium industries? (or steel/tin industries for different kinds of cans, or glass industry for bottles (with something for caps)?)

Besides, saying "oh, but countries could, they just don't" is having your cake and eating it too - the fact that countries don't because it's massively uneconomical means that yes, it does take multiple countries to produce a can.

It's a bit like saying "it takes a superpower to land men on the moon". Oh, sure, you could say "no it doesn't - throw enough private enterprise together and get someone there", but the point remains, no-one will - it still takes a superpower to land men on the moon.

>I'm pretty sure that if they had a good reason, any number of advanced economies could get it together enough to produce the cans themselves.

It's not just the metal, it's the ingredients of the flavouring. Coca leaves don't grow everywhere (although, sure, you could put the plant in a greenhouse).

A more accurate way to say it might be that no individual nation could produce a can of coke so cheaply.

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